Saturday, February 16, 2013

Garbage Incinerator in South Surrey

There’s a lot of talk and a lot of controversy over waste to energy incinerators these days. Burnaby already has one. Vancouver just turned one down and Godzilla is talking about bring one to Surrey. Kinda like Gordon Campbell’s gold plated pension he originally campaigned against. Oh it’ll never happen. Much.

Flipping agricultural land into industrial so some insider campaign contributors can make a quick buck is one thing, but building a garbage incinerator on agricultural land is another. I’m sure the neighbors are thrilled. Just another lie and broken promise from the mighty Godzilla. Go Godzilla.

Kinda fitting they’ll have smoke stacks from a giant incinerator behind the giant statue of Gordon Campbell at the industrial play park. Kinda like having a giant shredder in the BC Rail investigation. We’ll pollute Surrey First, next the World. Surrey Shirts should do that one next.

When I fist hear about the idea I think wow can they really do that? Turn garbage into energy? Then I find out they’re just talking about an incinerator that burns the garbage and generates some electricity on the side. Like burning toxic garbage doesn’t have any real concerns.

I like the back country for two reasons. Seeing mountains as far as the eye can see and seeing clean air. Looking at the city from the mountains used to be nice. Now you can’t get a photo of the city at any time of the day without seeing several factories billowing smoke out into the air. The Fraser Valley, surrounded by mountains has become a grey haze of air pollution.

The Green Party is an example of an increase in public concern about the environment. In response politics becomes very polarized. We have some people prioritize protecting the environment while others, like Stephen Harper are consciously going in the exact opposite direction in open defiance of those concerns.

Reducing landfills is good but creating more air pollution anywhere, especially in the Fraser Valley is not. CO2 emissions is a huge concern. Getting rich killing the planet is very counter productive. We can’t take that money with us to the grave. Words like sustainability aren’t just for granola freaks, they are for every responsible citizen now.

Incinerators create air pollution. They say it’s OK because the Burnaby plant is within acceptable limits. Yeah, who’s limits? It burns toxic garbage and gives off pollution. Who said how much pollution is acceptable and how much is not? Air quality in the Fraser valley is a very real concern.

These insane clauses in these ridiculous trade agreements have nothing to do with free trade. Companies who plan to pollute the environment sue the government for preventing them and get millions of dollars in compensation from a NAFTA tribunal. That compensation is in tax dollars. Which is not very fiscally responsible.

We need to trash these insane trade agreements that have nothing to do with free trade and stop awarding compensation of tax dollars to companies who want to pollute the environment. Removing our democratic rights is never a good thing. Neither is polluting the air we breathe.

2 comments:

Burning garbage is a BAD IDEA. There are some industrial processes that can't be done without a smokestack/releasing industrial waste into the air, but this is not one of them. Burning garbage is a choice, and the only reason it's being chosen is to make money, or to have to spend less of it. The phrase "false economy" comes to mind....

This plastic island has me thinking. If plastic does not decompose like Styrofoam, then were on earth does all the plastic go we keep creating and throwing away? Incinerating it would reduce the volume but burning plastic gives off some pretty toxic fumes. To me melting it down and recycling it would be a logical solution. Burning coal creates a lot of pollution because it's not clean burning. Burning garbage is way worse.